


pale green things

by realbear



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Birthday, Gen, Mention of abuse, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4044148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realbear/pseuds/realbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He leans on the bars, listening to the hurt. It came back to her like a favourite shirt with a forgotten stain on the front.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pale green things

**Author's Note:**

> I like Cole and Sera's dynamic, so... ( ･ ‿ ･)

_Easy gone wrong. Fear from the battlefield, her friend's hand as he slips and hits his head, even if her helmet was supposed to protect him._

_Water on the stone, slippery like when they used to play in the river._

_Frustrations, swears wrapped on her tongue, hanging but she drowns them with the alcohol. The burn and the taste makes her forget the echoes of the sea on the wall._

_It hits just as hard as the commander's voice for her failure, and she feels like spiralling, but it wasn't just her fault, it wasn't just..._

 

"Ugh!-- Why are you there?"

_Dread, disgust in her voice, different quivers draw arrows, but they all point to me, like her ears point to the fade and her eyes on my neck._

_I hear feelings, bursting and rushing, miscalculated, won’t fit._

 

The boy stops pacing, his legs hanging from the tavern's first floor, right knuckles on wood. Cole turns his head slowly, blue eyes looking up to Sera, full of mistrust and ideas rushing like waves on a harp.

"Listening."

 

She frowns, though her expression wasn't one of softness to begin with. She untenses, but only inside, where he shouldn't be able to hear.

"Well, do that somewhere else."

As she takes a step, it rings in his head like an arrow hitting its mark.

 

_Garbage, the smell of the alienage and its tall, useless tree. Surrounded by her peers, but she's not theirs. They grab and pull at something lost, wishes lost in the air and the screams of the ones the soldiers didn't spare._

_A small, red painted box, where her friends belong. No one walks that road this late but them._

_A lady smiles, but she brings nothing but hurt._

_There was running, but it was never fun. Something shakes, terrified._

_It's been years, but not long enough to stop those thoughts from scratching, burning her. She doesn't want to count, but she still does it._

 

By the time he realises, she's already gone. And when he finally follows, he lets a piece of blue cloth he picked up earlier by her chair, lets the grieving soldier know it really wasn't her fault.

 

 

 

Up in the battlements, there’s only the mountain air and the occasional guard patrol. They won’t see an elf.

No matter how long Skyhold has been worked on, pieces and bits are still unrepaired, purposeless rubbish on top of the fort’s walls. Quiet. Far. She jumped and climbed them, leaving the rest of her world under her for a while.

She’d go out in the snow, but she doesn’t want to freeze.

 

There, she gets to stop and not think. Sometimes, that’s what she needs. Some other times, it’s turning a compass around, or knitting, or sewing, or shooting something. She doesn’t need the Chargers yelling, or soldiers dancing, or minstrel singing.

Now, it’s just her. And her. Her.

The air smells clean, wild, cold. She sits on the stones, leaning her back on the rubble. It’s chill, and it feels through her shirt, but it’s good and it’s what she needs.

Here, she can remember what things were again.

 

They didn’t give her a birthday, back in the alienage. Maybe they did. She doesn’t remember, but she wants nothing from the other elves. When she told the tall lady, she was so shocked, she decided that the day she took her in to her home was going to be it. And it was nice, for the first times. When the lady betrayed, and when the lady left, it left only ashes. And she tried to spread them from her head, but they stained. Like a small scar left on the thumb because of a little splash of boiling oil, like the stain left by darkspawn blood on the ground of the deserted streets.

And when she scratches them, it hurts.

It hurts and it twists and rips and stings and it won’t just leave.

She tries to swallow, but it comes up like hands coming out of nothing like in the fade and she could’ve done more and reacted differently and she feels herself come undone, like she did before and times again and it sucks and she's better than that and it’s **awful**. The tears feel like shame pouring down and choking her throat, and she grips at her legs and wish it was over already.

 

That’s when she heard the whistling.

 

She turns around, like a rabbit caught in a trap. The melody makes little sense, but she knows what it is. She knows and it’s scary.

A handful of shameless, smiling troublemakers whistled the same thing years ago, when the Jenny’s found her. She had that song stuck in her head when she met the Inquisitor, too. And when they moved to Skyhold, and when the dragon circled them, and she’s always felt like singing ridiculous words to it whenever she’s had a little too much to drink. She doesn’t, but it feels like victory at her core.

The sound comes from lower down, but she can’t see who, or what. It scares her, but she doesn’t hate it. No one here would know what it was, they can’t know and…

It stops.

 

 

When she slips back down to the tavern, she finds the half-done blanket she started a few weeks ago, lost somewhere in her room. A small note was left in the fold, words scratched in a hurry.

 

_"I didn’t mean to scare you._

_She cared, but she did you wrong._

_You aren’t wrong._

_ You will feel better." _

 

 

Next time he sat near her door, she resisted the urge to kick him in the side.

 

 


End file.
